Cute Bunny Images, Economy Gnaw Into Rabbit Business

Cute Bunny Images, Recession Gnaw Into Sales Of Rabbits For Pets,

Food

EAST HAMPTON — The Easter Bunny need not fear hopping up to Victor Brothers' door.

Sure, Brothers has been raising, and eating, rabbits for 66 years. But as he used to tell his grandchildren, the rabbit butchered in that backyard shed is not, and never will be, the Easter Bunny.

Yet it's the immortal Easter Bunny and all those other bunnies of lore -- such as Bugs, Peter, Roger and Br'er -- who've cut deeply into the rabbit business for Brothers and others who raise rabbits in Connecticut and across the nation.

Brothers' granddaughter, Lisa Davidson, 21, flatly refuses to eat the rabbit that appears on the family table because she thinks rabbits are cute.

She won't eat rabbit even though she admits the meat tastes good. She found that out when her mother slipped a rabbit dish onto the table. (When she became suspicious, her mother admitted the trick.)

Those who raise rabbits call Davidson's reaction the "Easter Bunny-Peter Rabbit Syndrome." People think rabbits are cute and adorable, but Brothers questions how they can eat steak, veal or poultry. Cows, calves, chicken and ducks are cute too, he said.

Eating rabbits doesn't bother Brothers.

"Rabbits make very good eating. They're low in cholesterol," Brothers said. "I sell a lot of rabbits to doctors. They're good for ulcers."

Trouble is, with the recession and rabbit meat selling for $3 a pound, he joked doctors are probably the only ones who can afford it.

Brothers said he's lucky to sell one rabbit a month for meat when he was selling eight to 10 rabbits a month a few years ago.

People aren't even buying as many rabbits as pets at Easter, he said. He might sell four to five rabbits now, when it used to be 15

to 20 rabbits every Easter. People go to stores and buy less-expensive stuffed rabbit toys instead.

"Easter bunnies aren't what they used to be," Brothers sighed.

The 74-year-old retired maintenance worker doesn't hold a grudge -- just look at his house. A large purple pinata bunny sits on a table, a group of cloth baby bunnies grouped on the dining room table, and an Easter bunny cut-out, made by a grandchild, is tacked to the wall.

Brothers calls his business 4 Brothers Rabbitry. It's named after himself, his wife, Marti, and their two children, Victor Jr. and Bernadette Davidson, but only the father runs the business.

Granddaughter Lisa Davidson tends the rabbits while he's on vacation, and always gets a Christmas present from the rabbits in return.

While the family, except Lisa, enjoys the finished product, they don't plan to continue the rabbit business.

"I think we're all a little squeamish," said Bernadette Davidson. "If I had to kill something to be a meat-eater, I'd be a vegetarian."

Neither Bernadette Davidson nor her brother, both East Hampton residents, say they gave much thought to the rabbit business growing up. Still, Victor Brothers Jr. admitted it wasn't like having a dog around.

"It was kind of hard to explain," he said.

The elder Brothers began raising rabbits when he was 8 and living in Three Rivers, Mass. His dad started him in the business because stores didn't sell rabbit meat then.

Brothers takes pride in raising his mongrel rabbits. They spend winters in cages which line the small rabbitry Brothers built in the back yard. During the summer, the rabbits live in an outdoor row of cages.

Brothers puts prospective parents together in a cage and gives them five minutes to get acquainted.

"If they don't mate in five minutes they're not going to. When they're ready, they're ready," he said.

Death, like conception, is also quick.

Brothers ties a loop of string to a rabbit's hind leg to anchor the animal to the wall of his butchering shed, a three-sided building no bigger than a telephone booth. He stretches the animal out, gives it a quick stunning blow to the neck and then cuts off the head.

"My father showed me how to do it when I was a kid, and I never forgot. I do it so there is no suffering," he said.

Sounds gross, but Brothers has his standards.

His best customers, people of Italian heritage, sometimes ask to have the rabbit killed in an old-world style -- slitting the jugular vein in the rabbit's neck.

That's too cruel, he said.

People wishing more information on 4 Brothers Rabbitry may call 267-9425